Butterflies And Tsunamis
by StitchAndRepair
Summary: Debbie once told Ian a theory about the flap of a butterflies wings.


Debbie once told Ian that there's a theory that if butterflies were to flap their wings all at once, they could cause a tsunami in another part of the world.

Lip had argued back that it was hurricanes that were caused and butterflies had nothing to do with water so that theory was pretty stupid.

But Ian remembered thinking about the butterflies that he sometimes got in his stomach and wondered if maybe Debbie's theory applied to them instead.

Ian remembers the first time he ever felt butterflies in his stomach.  
He was 7 and it was his first ever time up to bat and the butterflies rose in his stomach and he suddenly felt lighter than air, a wide smile on his face as the little black haired boy, with eyes already hardened from things he shouldn't have seen, threw the ball in his direction and as he swung the bat with impressive force, he could see the stunned grin of the black haired boy as the ball flew for miles, soaring as strong as the flap of the butterflies in his belly and he ran, he ran as fast and as hard as he could with nothing but the feeling of the butterflies and the memory of that stunned grin.

He remembers feeling butterflies on Christmas morning, nervous for the state of his parents and excited for the presents he would get to open. They stopped after the age of 10 as the presents became few and his parents left him and his siblings behind.

He remembers feeling butterflies the first time he ever came out to somebody.  
Mandy Milkovich was the first person he ever said the words too.  
He'd felt a small flutter the first time Kash kissed him, too scared to really feel anything with Roger Spikey and he even felt them when he realised that Lip knew, but it was relief that had flooded through him, stronger than anything else, because he knew that Lip would eventually be cool about it.  
But with Mandy - she was the first person he'd ever had to tell and he wasn't sure what her reaction would be and what would happen after and as the words spilled from his mouth the butterflies were stronger than he'd ever felt before.

The first time Ian fucked Mickey, in a flurry of violence and tension and fingers that felt too good dug into his sides, Ian thought that the butterflies were going to break free from his chest and spread over the two boys like a blanket, shielding them from the rest of the world.

He felt the butterflies each time he was with Mickey - he felt them with every heated word, every slam of his hips, every dirty laugh that spilled, husky, like whiskey and smoke from Mickey's mouth.  
He felt them with a force the first time he picked Mickey up from juvie. He felt them, the storm in his stomach hitting him, swirling up like a tornado after being still for so long, when Mickey found him under the bleachers with a smirk on his face and a look of jealousy in his eyes.

He thought about Lip's theory and, in that moment and all the stolen moments they shared afterwards, that his talk of butterflies and hurricanes made perfect sense and he forgot all about Debbie's theory of tsunami's and the true danger that butterflies can bring.

Ian remembers the last time he ever felt butterflies.  
It was the day of Mickey's wedding and Mickey kissed him with a mouthful of promises and words he couldn't express, but Ian had thought he understood them anyway.

He thought he felt a stirring in his gut, the butterflies starting to wake in his belly when he heard Mickey's last word to him, _Don't_, but the sentence went unfinished and the butterflies died with the tsunami of acid and bile that he swallowed down from all the words they'll never get to say and he thinks that Debbie may have got it wrong.  
Maybe the tsunami was already coming and the butterflies somehow knew and they tried warning everyone else before they themselves got drowned under the weight of it.

And as he sits on the bus that's taking him away from all he's ever known, Ian's stomach is as dead as he feels.  
He wishes that he could stop time, wishes he could go back to when he was 7 years old; that first euphoric feeling as his stomach fluttered with the weightlessness of a million butterflies and he wishes he had taken the time to collect them all in a little jar, sealed the lid on them as tight as he could so he could save them and take them out in moments like this.

Moments when the weight on his shoulders was so heavy he thought he might break, when the hurt in his chest made his stomach feel hollow, made him feel like he would never be able to feel the weightlessness of the butterflies ever again.


End file.
